The exhibition includes works that propose a reflection on the sacred and the demystification and its limits

CaixaForum Barcelona ‘iconoclastic gestures’

Because certain images are attacked? Why all revolutions want to destroy the icons of their predecessors? How can you represent what is worshiped? And denigrate what is rejected?

They are current issues, judging by controversy kicked up by the Islamic State attacks against religious heritage or the cartoonish treatment of Muhammad. And on this subject is the exhibition ‘iconoclastic gestures. heterodox images’ presented from Friday in the CaixaForum, Barcelona (will remain open until June 5) in the second of three exhibitions that make up the second edition of Comisart. Noves mirades on col·lecció la Caixa.

The curator of this exhibition, Carlos Martin (Granada, 1979), has not sought to analyze the different forms and historical episodes of iconoclasm, but present some aspects of the debate from a selection of twenty works by contemporary artists from the collections of the art museum and the Caixa. The exhibition includes works opting for the destruction or removal, by ironic parody and citation, but others simply propose a reflection on the sacred and the demystification and limits.

The exhibition opens with an image of a wood carving of a saint seventeenth century martyr who destroyed his face and hands, symbol of aggression. Follow a photograph where a vacuum of one of the Bamiyan Buddhas niche, after its destruction in 2001. An empty icon that becomes the absence of these stone colossi seen. And this empty frame is also represented by zinc empty niches, built in wax, which Valeska Soares exposes in different parts of the exhibition route. Wax, a material that is associated with the churches, and how tabernacle are proof of this absence. But the author has added a sweet smell, honey, that as if it were a ritual tells us that image. it is not but it has been a certain odor. the film Removals, Pere Portabella, who filmed the process of emptying the house of Federico Garcia Lorca at the Huerta de San Vicente, to show the other side of the fetishistic effect is also included empty house, without the piano, without the furniture, without the portrait of the poet, who has been perfectly packed as if they give him the funeral he never had. Javier Peñafiel another film where it is seen as a floral arrangement is destroyed by gunshots and as later, rewind, returns to its original state is also planned.

Artist Pedro G. Romero slides on photographs of temples desecrated, destroyed by anti sacramentals actions occurred in Spain between 1845 and 1939, which are integrated into its already known file are presented F.X. In two other pieces, Rogelio López Cuenca plays with the trivialization of icons: a write in Arabic letters the word Seven up under the Catholic symbol associated with the seven sorrows of the Virgin, and other Dior, Chinique and Chanel, framing the hand of Fatima, symbol of Islam. The photographer Vanessa Beecroft was inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini for his image of a black woman breastfeeding her two small children, sitting on a throne and wearing a striking red dress. Acquires an iconic image tone black virgin, in Catalonia also links to a tradition itself.

In short an artistic reflection from different perspectives on the dialectic creation / destruction.